So yeah, I'll break down what happened Monday in the ever-popular
bullet form.

Note to anybody who went: For the future, we should meet
at Bryan's house just like we did. We almost couldn't do this
whole thing since Sophie lives in the middle of nowhere, and Mom
wasn't happy at the idea of driving there (bad planning on my
part, I guess).

* On the drive up, we got some random funny crap recorded onto
Steve's camera (I still have this from last summer's "DLAGON LOCKET
VIDEOOO" package we sent out--Steve doesn't seem to care), not
limited to THE 3RD TEST OF HELL (candy force feeding) and CROTCH
SHOTS APLENTY. Everyone played cellphone Snake, and we listened
to phat drum 'n bass b33tz of the E-Z Rollers (who I'll now force
you to download).

* We got to Scandia (for those of you who don't know, it's one
of those "family entertainment centers" with golf, batting cages,
and go-karts, but a nice arcade) and made a beeline for the MAX2
machine they have there (woo, still only $1.00). After some half-my
size kids went up and failed using their "two-arrows-each" approach,
Bryan and I got to inflate our egos in front of parents who we'll
never see again in our lives. Of course, I just had to fail on
the last step of So Deep, but at least the AM-3P sliding was fun
(Bryan actually quoted my "one trick AM-3Pony" line from one of
my old old blogs, wohah). And of course, we got the "have you
memorized all the songs or something?" question. Blegh, can't
they see...if we'd memorized the damn things, we'd be doing them
backwards.

* We then got rushed to get food by Hungry Hungry Hannah (and,
uh, soy), but the pizza counter was out of something. See, up
until then, Bryan/Adam/Sophie had had pizza together every day.
So we left as fast as we'd come in and went to In-N-Out instead.
Helluva fun times there--Hannah and Bryan came onto me and beat
the Homer-style "loud whisper" gag into the ground:

BRYAN: ("whispering") OH MY GOD JAMES IS SO HOT RIGHT
NOWBRYAN: (shifting hand to cover side of face closest to
me) OH WHOOPS, WRONG HAND...HANNAH, JAMES IS SO HOT RIGHT NOWHANNAH: YOU SHOULD SO SEX HIM

etc, with them saying stuff in "whispers" louder than they usually
talk. Our table got so loud that some guy came over and basically
told us to shut the hell up, in that casual yet pissed off kind
of way (like in Jackass, how the golfers talked to Knoxville and
crew after they were blowing airhorns on the green :). We took
the hint, finished up, and attacked each other with Post-Its FPS-style
in the parking lot. (*clack, clack*, "reload")

* Scandia has a huge variety of expensive non-joystick games,
none of which are really worth the money except DDR and Para Para
Paradise. Adam tried a razor scooter one that had some
good Engrish quotes ("THE WRONG WAY") and nothing else.
There was this one guy playing PunchMania--or whatever that game
with the boxing glove is--who looked completely
gay. I never thought a boxing game could look more effeminate
than a dancing game, but he proved me wrong. =D (I didn't catch
it on tape, though, damn). There was also a guy playing that Police
911 game (gun game w/ motion sensors--you actually have to duck
down to duck) who Bryan and soy thought was the funniest thing
evar, but I looked and he was just playing normally--don't hate
the playa', hate the game (whut?).

* soy tried out ParaPara
Paradise for the first time, and owned it up to four, uh,
hand songs. She still says that DDR is better, but I dunno, ParaPara
seems like her game...Bryan did some 1337 Dynamite Rave freestyling
to the side of the machine (handslaphandslaphandslaphandslaphandslaphandslap)
as a coming attraction for later (and we got that later routine
on tape, yesss!).

* Unfortunately, there was only one 1337 AzN DDR Masta there--AAing
9-foot songs (O-Yama,
btw. Hannah invited him herself to the Starbase tourney (brgh,
now I can't win :P), and then we got to yell stuff like "ROAST
BEEF!" while he played, and all was good.

* While Adam and Hannah had mad sex or something on the mini-golf
course, we all stood around the vending machine (the water cost
1) and tried to convince Sophie to pay up for a ride on the go-karts
but she was all "5.75?! fuck dat" and Bryan's all "bitch ya better
use my $3:00 dealy, yo" and she's all "oh
HELL NO". Which is funny, since all her life she's wanted
to go on the go-karts at Scandia...until she had to pay for the
ride herself.

* And finally, we found the most blatant phallic structure since
<A HREF="http://www.snopes2.com/disney/films/mermaid.htm">that
spire in the poster for The Little Mermaid</A>--a redemption
game called TOWER OF POWER, which is basically a giant rounded
cylinder surrounded by seven huge glowing orbs. We got it on tape
and took turns rubbing it, and couldn't stop laughing, meanwhile,
a parent with a kid in her lap just tried to look away. "Tower
of Power" is the dick joke du jour now.

That's about it...Apparently both Brad (evilflatkiwi) and Simbo
have video-to-DV converters at their houses, so who knows, you
might be able to download clips of this trip in video form. =D

random:

* ...tried out my first public Never Let You Down routine backwards
yesterday, and completely failed it thanks to Darren Lo's psyche-out
antics. >_< Guess I'll have to "come back to this stage after
morre practice."

* Shwan and Henry think I need a rap
name. I told 'em "Slim Gowdey," but they think I need something
aboot Canada in there. -_-

* These two girls I'd never seen before yelled "JAMES!!" in the
halls today, and then after I turned around, they went "Oh wait,
you're not James." Turns out they thought I was James Peterson...hahgahahh,
all right, I'm just desperate for material now.

Hornet558: do u like ddrJeffreyAtW: Yeah.Hornet558: Vice City is better

TOO MUCH has happened lately, and I can't cram it into a blog by a reasonable hour tonight if I'm going to watch a movie. First off, here's a little DDR Singalong FAQ I've been writing for the past week now.

Friday got me out of the rut I was in for most of the week--Schmitt really wants to see me improve, and has suggested a speech therapist, (finally)--I hadn't been with that many friends in one day since...ever? Steve assembled a huge group to go to the mall and see Jackass--Jeff, Levi, Steve, Felix, Simbo, Vladimir (never before mentioned on the site, yay). We got to waste an hour or so away at the mall's arcade first, so I racked up something like 14 wins in MvC2 (it's fun and sad when scrubs keep challenging you over and over again because they have nothing better to do) and watched Steve play Jambo Safari (translates to "Hello Safari", wtf). Oh, and the arcade finally ordered a DDR machine, and will be getting it in a month. It's about 3 blocks down from school...can you say "DDR Club gatherings"? =D

It was my second time seeing the jack of all asses, and Steve forced us to sit up front for half of it (allll the way up front), but it was still just as much of a WTFest as before--there isn't a movie with a script where you'll laugh as much as this. I still crack up at the short bits the most (i.e. guy skids across rainy surface on a trash can lid, starts to fall, and at the same time is smacked by a runaway shopping cart...cut to next clip right away :)

After much reminiscing of how COOL it was in Jackass when Steve-O trampolined into the fan and whatnot...Levi and Jeff and I arrived at the Oasis, then gathered some TL people to tromp down to Starbase as usual. On the way there (and for the second time I can remember), there were these two middle aged (hag) women standing outside a bar, smoking and drinking (all at once, a la Kramer). And for the second time, they said "Ohhh, look at all these cute guys!"...I don't know if it's to boost our confidence or fuck with our heads. :P

To break the usual DDR story down:

* EVERYBODY imaginable was there: Bryan, Adam, Soy, Hannah, Jeff of course, Levi, Brad/Simon (from DDR club), Conrad, Some Guy...even Chris was working there that night. There was an insane amount of yelling and singing as always--we've definitely run out of fun things to do on the DDR machine, though--same old Do Me, DynamiteRavescrub routines (watch that last one, if anything), Petit Love singing. But damn if it doesn't still make my Friday night. :)* Hannah smacking me (involuntarily--Bryan was holding her arms) across the face like a pimp.* Me doing better on R&P than Chris. =D* Kick the Can challenge failed by everybody both times it was tried (Jeff was intentional, Bryan is just teh klutz).* Levi introduced to Rockstar (and subsequently going insane). Sophie introduced Bryan and I to some funked up syrupy green drink that looked (and tasted) like something out of a Nickelodeon show.* Simon getting owned by Sophie in DDR twice, then failing Captain Jack ("GOOOOOOOOO") on the last 5 steps when she didn't even try. It was funny because at the beginning, soy assumed he was a lot better than she. I think part of the reason was that Brad and Levi and I sang lyrics to "Captain Jack" nonstop during his first two songs until he finally chose the song. =)* Conrad button mashing his way to the last boss with a crappy team in MSHvSF (they took out MvC2, agh).* A pack full of sweaty DDRers crammed into one room just to watch my blooper reel!* DDR 4TH MIX PLUS TOURNAMENT ANNOUNCED FOR SOME DATE AT STARBASE. I don't know what the full competition is since nobody plays at Starbase, but who knows, I just might win the freestyle division. =D

Jeff drove everybody home, and we listened some of the most fucked up techno ever (done by a gay guy--no, not DJ Gay-Boy), along with Stomp To My Beat off of "92.7...PARTY", all the while yelling "OWNED!!!" as usual to innocent bystanders. I then got home, wrote up a half-assed outline for this blog, responded to Liustyle's PM about video editing (yay, recognition for the bloopers!), and passed out.

Yesterday, I woke up early (uh, 11) and memorized my choice for the Starbase tourney, Never Let You Down. I can do the steps pretty much, but I've found it's harder to get any kind of improv freestyle down if I'm focused on pulling the steps out of my memory. On a side note, DDRMAX is the best home mix to date...it has so many freaking songs I like (except "I Like To Move It", "22Dunk", and "Love This Feelin'"--don't ever play these unless it's some kind of Jackass stunt). Now if only those modded pads weren't AT SCHOOL on weekends...

And today was this cross country/celebration-of-house-remodeling-or-something party at a TL sophomore's (Miles Sullivan...I think Jeff mentioned him somewhere in his blog) house. I confused soy a little under Miles's screenname, watched Miles's buddies obsess over cars (something I never got) and those same cars crashing, ate way too many condiments, drank way too much orange cream soda, could barely breathe after playing some pickup basketball in a heavy long sleeve shirt, played that Gundam fighting game that Almasy likes for the first time (sucked at it, but nice graphics), stomped down little tykes in SSB Melee (FALCO...PAUUNCH!), and slid around on Miles's crappy DDR soft pad (he apparently hates the game now that Jeff booted him out of the club once for stomping too hard). In other words, it sucked--it was way too cramped, with downstairs being filled with middle aged friends of his mom, and upstairs filled with strobe lights and meddling kids laughing at uglypeople.com humor. I would have gotten away with it, too.

And just in case you thought this wasn't a FF7 humor site (which it isn't), here's a song parody from a fan by the name of Earth Mage 2000. And updated AIM fun by me.

Yesterday, it was back to Starbase--yeesh, I'm starting to turn into one of their Friday regulars--and the Oasis, except neither Bryan, Adam, Sophie, OR (nor?) Hannah were there. But Chris was, so things weren't a total disappointment. Let's see...I tried out my first Rockstar energy drink, which owns Red Bull and Bawls as "Oasis Night Drink." (Rockstar lasts longer while Bawls gets drained faster...yeah). We came up with a challenge for all: Place an empty aluminum can in the middle of the DDR "pad," then play Kick the Can on Maniac without kicking the can. =)

Also, thanks to Jeff's cry of "JAMES GOWDEY IS AMAZING", I got conversation and spontaneous hugs from random Oasis girls om^^;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; . Yeah, I'm sad, I'm still at the stage where I actually value those. Jeff and I also did a mock-D.A.R.E. scenario with Elliot when he offered us a cigarette ("CHICKEN! CHICKEN!!" "NO WAY MAN!!!* *COLD SHOULDER OF DEATH*).

My parents want me to spend time on college applications and my personal statement, yet my dad took me to San Francisco today to see Game 6 of the World Series on the big screen outside the Metreon. I sound like a girl here, but I wore the worst possible outfit imaginable to Frisco--prep khaki pants and poofy white wiggah jacket. I forgot that tons of people in the city wear jeans, and being that it was a huge Giants day, everyone was clad in black and orange combos. I stood out like your mother.

It was great, though; there were thousands of people packed onto the grassy knoll (ehe) outside the Metreon to watch the Big Game on a Big Screen. Some guys were banging drums and starting chants every other out, which kicked ass. My dad and I watched most of it, with me taking occasional dance breaks when the Angels went up. (my theory: why would I want to see them score?) At one point, who should I see there during one break at the MAX2 machine...but Chris the Starbase guy! We each passed So Deep--3rd time ever here, w00!--and I never saw him after that, since he was lost in the swarm of Giants fans. Run-ins are always fun. :)

And I swear, even though the games cost 2, the Metreon is the place to get huge crowds. People gather to watch a newbie play Boom Boom Dollar, so it was a highlight of the day performing Put Your Faith in Me backwards for gaping soccer moms and little kids...speaking of old-school DDR songs, the original My Fire ("Relight My Fire") is so bad it sucks.

After much Giants ass kicking, including a Bonds homer (the place exploded), the Angels won 6-5 after our team blew a 5-0 lead in the 7th. And there was much cursing. I've never seen so many dejected faces at once in my life. :P

After the game (EHEHEHEHEH), there was traffic up the hizzle, and we listened to the wasteland of sports talk radio. Callers second-guessed Dusty Baker and whined about why they didn't put Lofton onto the DH and bring in Shinjo, who couldn't have done half as much as Lofton batting-wise (no matter how 1337 he is). Dusty is apparently "this close" to leaving the Giants based on previous sports-talk comments, as well as his relationship with the manager (no).

I'd better go to bed now...I'll be doing the impossible and trying to run 18, yes, 18 focking (tm Hifumi) miles up and down Mt. Tam with my XC team. If the coach hadn't forced me, there is no way in hell I would have ever agreed to it.

Random last things: Brownie points to anyone who can figure out what the last few lyrics are in the chorus to "Take On Me" (my new "play-on-Winamp-first-thing" song)...the results for the photoshop contest of "Hotlips Harrelson" (as the XC team has unanimously decided to name him) will be posted sometime later, so in the meantime, here are some sweet character sprites of me and him that Indogutsu made.

I'm still an emotional wreck as it is. I can't imagine a month that has gone worse for me than this (perfectly enough, that angsty post of mine was on 10/1). Last night took weight off my shoulders and left me feeling empty at the same time. I don't want to talk about it much, but some things are better left unsaid. I still haven't gotten a good night's sleep except for the 9 1/2 hours I got the day following a day where I was fueled on one hour. The stutter hasn't gotten any better, but at least some friends of mine know about it, so it isn't as much of a big deal to me to do it around them. The rest of the school, however...it's still part of the reason I don't talk to girls, participate in class, or what have you.

My vocabulary has completely deteriorated. I still use "sophomoric phrasing" in my essays, a phrasing which has gotten me through 3 years of honors english with not too much of a hassle. Last year my teacher gushed about how great and "snappy" it was or whatever, so I was truly unprepared for this year's extremely strict standards. It's what I hate about high school english, although there's really no way to avoid it--conform to the teacher's style of writing or else you'll recieve a low grade.

My summer assignment turned out so horrible that this teacher recommends I get the fuck out of her class. Due to a misunderstanding with the assignment, I apparently did half the assignment. I don't even want to think about what my grade was for that trash. This same teacher went around drilling my other teachers about how I was doing, checked my transcript and couldn't believe she saw so many A's from previous years, and planned a meeting with all my teachers, myself, and my parents, to talk about how much I'm sucking in school. Then I get to stutter back about what a carnival my life is except for the parts that really matter, and my mom lays down the law about my college essay and applications, and I feel no different than before except that I'll probably have less computer time and a lower self esteem.

My theory on this whole AP lit disaster is that the constant use of AIM and the blogs are slowly eating away at my writing style and vocabulary. It's too conversational. But ugh...who doesn't like talking to their friends or writing about their day? Sacrifices sacrifices sacrifices. I'm not pissed at the teacher, I don't hold anything against her, but I want A) her to stop treating me like some scum of the earth sophomore who spells "you're" "your", and B) to sort out this summer assignment deal, because I swear I did everything the paper said.

The one thing that went right today is that I got 3rd place in the Big Race today against Tam, helping us along to win by two places. But Mrs. Schmitt (teacher)'s comments on my latest paper wrecked my whole fucking day:

- Sophomoric :(- Rejections of author's original intent- Shallow development of argument- Organization difficulty- Opinion in place of analysis- Prose style not APC-- "James, I seriously question whether this is the right class for you. Please talk to Mrs. Duncan" (counselor)

All right, I should be reading a chapter of the book, not blogging. I don't know why I'd force this reading onto anyone, all they'd think is "Woah, what a sack of depression beans." (tm Bryan). I need a good crying pillow. I'm out.

(btw, I know this has nothing interesting in terms of content, but here's some easy laughs that should tide you over--my giant, fun pic collection hosted on Almasy's server. I'll be moving this blog very soon to Almasymarquis.com)

Not Adam, Not Jam, Not Levi, Not Simon, and Not Mark Lee showed up too.

Since we'd finally gotten all the materials (the Home Depot has everything you'll ever need to make the perfect DDR pad), for modding, we got to work right away, backed up by 5 shuffling CDs of E-Z Rollers, Ugress, DDR, "Earth, Wind and Fire" tracks, and more. Jeff and Kriffin did most of the work (thanks a bunch, guys), and after all had been laid out, duct taped, and stapled, the mods turned out fuggin' picture perfect. They won't bunch, crumple, or slide any more (we'll be the only ones sliding on that 1337 vinyl) for the DDR club, w00.

Meanwhile Soy aggravated a few of my friends online (while everybody else played ping-pong or did modding, or played Zone of the Enders). Er, more like she owned 'em. Here's the trauma caused to Big Tsu, Henry (he owns her actually), and Almasy in a matter of minutes. Had funs with Hannah too. Damn, that was chaotic. If you look hard, you can see my swatted down attempts from the side of the room at revealing who it was (even though you could, uh, SEE HER on the cam). She and Bryan also scoured my computer for pics of Asians and Lily. =|

We played 5th mix, which is one of the best home mixes I've seen next to DDRMAX for the PS2--Abyss, On the Jazz, The Cube, I Was the One, Mr. T, Hot Limit...yum. We also did some Konamix, where a Make Your Move freestyle on doubles tested the pads for the first time (unless they're modded, doing doubles at home can cause some seriously pissed off DDRers :). 3rd mix was fun as well, with kareoke sing along goodness, bondage, brownies, and some thrust-freestyle as well. Jeff and I each passed catas, proving that the new pads can take abuse and still work! Then we watched overplayed Flash movies and looked at 3Bp pics until it was time to go. Giants won 4-3, BTW.

All in all, it kicked serious ass, and can't be summed up in a blog. I wanna thank everyone for coming, and I hope you had as much fun as I did. :)

BigTsu tells us to listen to Masashi Hamauzu, and to buy (aka download) the "SaGa Frontier 2" soundtrack and Ween's album "White Pepper" (sez they have a great range of music styles), because they own almost as much as he got owned today.

Cross country race today, I got 5th place out of...a lot, and our school kicked the collective asses of Justin Siena, San Marin, and most importantly, DRAAKE. I got permanent inked with "SEE YA!" on the back of my neck--a cocky bastard is me.

I am loving these 5 period days. Thanks to block schedule (two periods taken out Tues-Thurs), it means I can get out before lunch (actually after, since there wouldn't be people to hang around). Steve/Steve/Felix/Omid/Francisco and I all headed over to the radio station to play our favorite bands for the maybe 5 people listening on 88.1 FM. I talked with the supervisor about joining the radio class, and she said it's not too late--seems pretty laid back about it, anyway. Who knows, I might go into radio and trance the place up what with the electronica CDs I've burned. As well as stutter on the mic and make an ASS out of myself. Ugh. I was not destined to be a DJ, nor do I want to pursue that, but eh, I love music, I like the people there, it sounds like fun, and I get credit for it.

DDR Club today was great--not only did Mr. Doherty compliment me for looking like I was dancing (I almost have the arms down to Non Embarrassing), but I ended the Put Your Faith in Me freestyle (omg backwards) with the coolest accidental ending I'll ever do. The final few steps are Right, Down, Left, Up. To cap it, I did an intentional scrubby "LR to handplant D" to hit R and D, hopped up a little with the left foot to hit L, then complelely lost my balance, and just fell flat on my back around the bottom left hand corner of the pad, not even bothering to try for the Up arrow. But in the game, /\ (on the bottom left and isn't that a KICKASS triangle? :P) counts as Up, so the last step registered, and I ended up getting a Perfect on the last step by falling on my ass. =D

We've also got all the materials to mod my pad--now just to get the plywood boards, and we're set!

Jeff finally saw the pic of Sketchee, with censorship. The best part came while Jeff was talking about who and what the pic was of: "--GAY GUY who was MASTURBATING on his WEBCAM!!!11". EVERYBODY IN THE ROOM STOPPED TALKING. XD

Indogutsu dedicated a special page to the beloved DDR Engrish song: Hot Limit. If you don't already have the MP3, you can get it at ID Music, the Dancemania/DDR/Beatmania mega MP3 site. Speaking of WTFable DDR lyrics, E-Rotic has some that have to be seen (or, uh, heard) to be believed.

Finally, since I'm bored and it's the weekend, there's a photoshop "contest" for this classic pic. There's no real prize, of course, but see what you can come up with, and I'll post it all later. If anybody does it, that is.

One of the pads started to go awry today in DDR clubbin'. Heh, only two meetings into it and it's starting to go, what a surprise. Jeff, get this through your head:

"The majority of cheapo pads break down in months, even weeks. Sticky arrows, phantom steps, nonresponsiveness, and tearing up are common. To extend the life of a pad you need to mod it before you use it." - DDRFreak forums

I confess, I downloaded a few "Darrin's Dance Grooves" off KaZaA, with N*Sync and Britney choreography and the like. Like 'em or not, they still can dance circles around most DDR freestylers. I've got this urge to practice or something...who am I turning into, Jena? :P

Go Giants, don't get knocked out too early! =D...oh, and as for the A's, I have two things to say to them:

Copyright 1999-2002 The Midgar Staff . All games belong to their respective owners. The Midgar Swamp is by no means affiliated, supported, or advertised by Squaresoft, Sony, Capcom, Namco, or any other gaming companies mentioned here. For external use only. Avoid contact with the eyes. If contact occurs, rinse eyes thoroughly with water. If condition worsens or does not improve after regular use of this website as directed, consult a doctor. Keep this and most drugs out of the reach of children. And drink yo' milk!